ABSTRACT
The club good corresponding to the Economic and Monetary Union club is the single currency. Among German first-generation neo- or ordoliberal economists, Wilhelm Ropke was one of the few to apply their ideas with messianic fervor to the unfolding project of European integration. The model of a union of clubs in addition to a common acquis reduced to an undisputed and reasonable core of universalizable policies also has implications for the European Neighbourhood Policy. European Union (EU) decision-making procedures provide most favorable conditions for non-generalizable rent-seeking deals to be Europeanized as ‘law.’ EU club goods corresponding to the single market include the ‘peace dividend’ derived from mutual gains from trade and enhanced international division of labor and knowledge. The EU spends around 40% of its budget on agriculture. Conceiving the EU as a club of clubs is not only consistent with increasingly relevant parts of EU reality; it is also compatible with the basic ‘mutual gains’ notion of constitutional economics.
